Fast-emerging competition, societal and lifestyle shifts, technological advances, and shifting business models are just some of the trends contributing to the enormous changes occurring in the workplace benefits landscape today. What's more, the speed of change that employers, brokers, and carriers will face in the future will only accelerate. In order to remain viable, one important question needs to be answered: How will these stakeholders handle the challenges they face today and tomorrow?

To help provide answers to this question and others, LIMRA invited industry executives to openly discuss their views as to where they believe the future of workplace benefits is headed. While these executives offered varied opinions as to the impact future trends would have on their businesses — given an increasingly diverse labor force and evolving employer-employee relationships — they agreed that past behavior is not necessarily the best predictor of future success, and the industry is becoming even more fragmented.

Two issues that garnered much of the discussion revolved around the future of the voluntary marketplace and technology.